Today there exists a massive vacuum in the free market capitalist system that is largely blind to the destructive onslaught of the negative externalities (e.g. pollution, unsafe labor conditions, etc.) it generates. The current market has no effective methodology or technologically systematic solution for effectively dealing with, or accounting for, these negative externalities. Today's market measures businesses primarily by their short-term profits, consequently businesses are heavily incentivized to ignore the long-term costs of negative externalities. Developed countries have created regulations that require businesses to account for negative externalities and price them into their decision-making processes, so to increase their competitive advantages, nearly all large corporations have offshored manufacturing to developing nations with lax or non-existent regulations. Furthermore, since the market has no effective mechanism for adding the costs of negative externalities into the final retail price, consumers in Western economies are insulated from these negative consequences—they demand low priced products that last just a few years, while unconsciously supporting the destruction of the environment and health of people in Eastern economies for the next one hundred years. A recent study showed that 64% of wealthy Chinese are seeking to emigrate and flee their homeland, due to pollution. Pollution in China is now so bad that nearly one-third of the PM2.5 particulate pollution on the West Coast of North America originates in the East. Clearly, our economic model is broken.
In the preindustrial economy, products were locally crafted by individuals or small teams that took pride in their work. The rapid advance of technology broke up the product making process into thousands of specialized pieces, causing a major shift in the economy away from personal, community-focused trade and toward impersonal and complex global exchanges where buyers and sellers are isolated and emotionally disconnected. The modern economy disenfranchises consumers from the decision-making processes that determine the way resources and capital are used and allocated to produce products and services for them. As a result, consumers focus on low prices and businesses on short-term profits at the expense of our human values.
Marketing and advertising drive the vast majority of sales in a today's economy. As long as advertising is predominantly controlled by businesses that are incentivized to push a propagandized, sexy image of their products with impunity, consumers will continue to be seduced into remaining largely oblivious and separated from the negative impacts surrounding the manufacture of the products they buy. Under this system, consumers have no way to filter and control the advertising targeting them or to efficiently project their human values into the market to govern the quality, standards, and values of the information delivered to them and the products they consume. Instead of an intelligent discourse between consumers and producers, the market has trivialized and reduced the interchange to a simplistic price point that marginalizes and in many ways excludes the humane values that should be at the center of the dialog to inform and direct our economic activity. Online reviews are a step forward, but since most individuals are not informed about the destructive environmental and health consequences of unregulated manufacturing, almost all reviews focus exclusively on the pros and cons of the product's performance
In addition, in this current digital age, our personal and private transactions and lives are increasingly exposed to either the public, corporate, or governmental domains against our will. This exposure has become so pervasive as of this writing, that people are fearful of taking full advantage of all of the possibilities and conveniences implied and possible with the Internet and mobile devices. We feel like our lives are increasingly no longer our own simply because we wish to purchase a product, get directions to a destination, or communicate for work or with our friends and loved ones.
Computerized targeted advertising is increasingly being used to target potential consumers. The ubiquity of social networks and the large volume of data generated by such networks is increasingly being used to further target advertising within electronic systems. Computerized advertising permits a degree of targeting not possible in other realms. Yet, the ubiquity of social networks and other online services entice us to sacrifice our privacy in order to receive the benefits of these “free” services. This approach creates an escalating tension between our desire to control our personal information and the service provider's need to continually improve profits by selling increasingly targeted advertising.
Current targeted advertising systems suffer from a number of other limitations. For example, such systems may not be able to provide targeted advertising in a shared system with multiple devices, such as televisions and mobile phones. In addition, such systems may not provide for targeted advertising to participants in a group setting. Another area of concern for Consumers is that they are unable to control the subject matter or kind of advertising that is being pushed to them; and there is currently no technological solution way to have their values, morals, and privacy respected and reflected in a more meaningful way than is available currently.
Therefore, there exists ample opportunity for improvement in technologies related to providing targeted advertising solutions in a variety of different situations.
With current advertising and fulfillment systems, retailers have access to a great deal of a potential customers' information. The information is valuable to retailers but customers have a desire to guard the information.
Keyword advertising is booming across the Internet today, and behind the scenes, money changes hands with every click of a user's mouse. Retailers and advertisers are more than willing to pay for access to a user's information—but the user is forced to give up this information for free. The money may be diverted to clearing houses, search engine companies, or publicly traded corporations. The end user fuels the economics of online advertising; however, the end user does not obtain his or her rightful portion of the generated cash flow accompanying every click.
Although it may be too melodramatic to compare the constant surveillance of user data on the Internet to Big Brother of Orwellian fame, it is well known that advertisers place cookies unknowingly on users, tracking end users without their consent.
There is a need to improve advertising methods so that they are more protective of an end user's privacy, while ensuring that they are as accurate as possible by paying users to view advertisements that are targeted to an end user using personal information that is voluntarily provided by the end user. Additionally, there exists a profound need for consumers of the digital age to gain the advantages of real time location and activity tracking without sacrificing their privacy or their values in the process. And a way needs to be made to empower consumers to compel and reward producers to do better for the world.